


Letting Go

by Luthorchickv2



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 12:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18850882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthorchickv2/pseuds/Luthorchickv2
Summary: Steve makes a different decision at the end of Endgame.





	Letting Go

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a text exchange with a friend and I couldn’t not write it.

Steve saves Vormir for last. Returning the other stones had been comparatively easy until the Time Stone. Steve had started this mission fully intending on going back in time to Peggy and returning to 2023 the long way but the being who took the time stone back had taken one look at him and had simply asked “Is it worth erasing everything Margaret Carter built and stood for just so you could be with her? Because if you do what you are planning to that is what will happen;  
The children she had, the husband she loved, her job? That all disappears if you do this.” 

Steve had stared at them, stunned and not a little embarrassed. He had forced himself to look them in the eye. “Are you sure?” He asked quietly. 

They nodded. “She is your past Steve Rogers, do not deprive her of her future and you, yours. She had no regrets over her life and wanted you to live yours.”

Steve had simply handed them the stone and blinked away to Vormir. 

Now he stands on a ledge staring over the side, an enemy he though long dead at his back and and Natasha’s place of death in front of him. 

“Is there nothing I can do to bring her back?” He asks staring down, refusing to look at the crimson face. 

“The stone requires a sacrifice of something you love. Just because you bring the stone back, doesn’t mean she is returned to you.” 

Steve moves the stone between his fingers, thinking. He has to try something, anything. 

“Something I love, huh?” And it comes to him. He reaches into into the pouch on his belt and raises his hand clenched around the stone and something else. He smiles sadly and thinks “goodbye” as he lets the stone and compass fall through his fingers. 

He wakes up later lying in a pool of water, Natasha staring down at him and a lightness in his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Sam still becomes Cap


End file.
